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Kepublicanism or 
Democracy? 



BY 



ELIHU ROOT 

Secretary of State 



Speech as Chairman of Republican State Convention 
at Saratoga, N. Y., September 14, 1908 



Republicanism or 
Democracy? 




By ELIHU ROOT 

Secretary of State 



(20 






iJy Transfer, 

2G 0.. r :9)i> 



CONTENTS 

PAGE. 

High Record of Administration 5 

Inspiration from the People 6 

Resentment of Lawbreakers 7 

Effectiveness of Government 8 

Progress at Panama 8 

Postal Service Improved 9 

Thieves Restore Plunder lo 

Extensive Irrigation Work . . . .• lo 

Protection of Coal Lands 1 1 

Value of Land Increased 12 

Trade in World's Markets 13 

Peace and Arbitration 13 

Canada and China 14 

Japanese Question Settled 14 

Policy in Caribbean Sea 15 

Consular Service Reorganized 16 

Statistics of Prosperity 16 

Practical Capacity to Govern 17 

Taft the True Successor 17 

The People Do Rule 18 

Bryan's Charges Met 18 

People Choose Senators 19 

Question for the States 20 

Management of the House 20 

Legislative Rules Imperative . 21 

"Tailors of Tooley Street" 21 

Nation's New Employees . 22 

Surplus in Treasury 22 

Roosevelt's Renunciation 23 

The Human Factor 24 

Tariff for Revenue Only 24 

When Business Ceased 25 

Bank Deposits 25 

Depositors Would Suffer 26 

Bryan Unqualified 2y 

Bryan's Former Issues ' 28 

Regulation of Railroads 28 

Bryan not Jeffersonian ^ 29 

Bryan Paternalistic 29 

Are the Democrats Competent ? . . 30 

How Democrats Hated their Leader 31 



REPUBLICANISM OR 
DEMOCRACY? 



Gentlemen of the Convention: 

Just a decade has passed since we were assembled in this 
place engaged in the business of nominating Theodore Roosevelt 
for Governor of New York. We are now to nominate a successor 
to Charles E. Hughes as Governor; and we are to peiform that 
duty according to our wisdom, our loyalty to party and to country, 
hi such a way that the Empire State shall surely cast her electoral 
vote for the Republican candidate to succeed the same Theodore 
Roosevelt as President of the United States. 

May we not discern in the performance of that duty an oppor- 
tunity broader in its scope, more compelling in its obligation than 
the mere attainment of local success? May we not do our work 
here in such a way and in such a spirit that throughout all the 
country Republicans shall be inspired with courage and hope, and 
every doubtful voter shall be convinced by proof that in this great 
representative State, the home of the candidate for Vice-President, 
Republicans are sincere in their professions, loyal to their prin- 
ciples, unselfish in their patriotism, truly representative of the 
body of the people and worthy of the great traditions of the party 
of Lincoln? 

High Record of Administration. 

We have a record which forbids discouragement or doubt 
in the performance of our task. We can turn to the administra- 
tions, now drawing to a close, both in the State and in the nation, 
and with confidence ask every American voter to say whether they 
have not met all the great fundamental requisites of good govern- 



ment, whether they do not justify the behef that it is best for the 
country to keep in power the party which is responsible for them 
and is entitled to the credit of them. Have not these administra- 
tions within the State and within the nation been honest? Have 
they not been capable ? Have they not been efficient ? Have they 
not set before all the people of America examples of pure, high- 
minded and patriotic service in public office ?' Have they not raised 
the standard of public duty which the young men of America set 
for themselves? Have they not done us honor before the world? 
These are the true tests by which to determine whether it is 
wise to continue a political party in power. It is such tests as 
these that we all apply in our private affairs when we select a 
business agent, or a trustee, or a lawyer, or a teacher for our chil- 
dren. Common sense dictates their application in the selection 
of our agents and trustees for public business. All parties make 
promises before election agreeable to the ear and satisfying to the 
wishes of voters ; but will they keep the promises ? What is the 
evidence that they are made up of men who have the honest wall, 
the firnmess of character and the ability, without which such 
promises are worthless? Look to the record; see what parties 
have done in the past, and learn there which should be trusted 
for the future. Look not to petty, refined details, but to the broad 
question whether, taken as a whole, their wisdom, efficiency 
and honesty in the past give promise of wisdom, efficiency and 
honesty in the future. The answ^er to this question will be worth 
more as a guide to the voters at the coming election than all the 
discussion over fine spun theories and sanguine conjectures that 
can be crowded into a Presidential campaign. 



Inspiration from the People. 

There have been two special and notable characteristics in 
which these two administrations have been alike. One is that 
they have both gone directly to the people of the country, to the 
great body of the electors themselves, for their inspiration and 
their strength. Neither Governor nor President has relied upon 
that view of expediency in the conduct of public affairs which is to 
be gained by secret conferences in closed rooms. They have con- 
strued their representation of the people as being immediate and 
without intervening authority or interpreters. When they have 
formed opinions as to the lines of policy which it was wise to 
follow in the performance of their duties they have explained 
their opinions directly, through the press and through public 
speeches, to the people who elected them, and, having got back 



the people's answer, they have given due weight and effect to it, 
in accordance with the true principles of representative govern- 
ment. 

The second special resemblance is in a much more than or- 
dinary vigor and sternness in the enforcement of law, which have 
characterized both State and National administrations. Does 
the Constitution of the State say that no gambling shall be allowed 
in the State? Then it seems to the State administration a com- 
pulsory and inevitable conclusion to be forthwith acted upon with 
all the power of the State, that such allowance must be stopped 
at all hazards, no matter who is hurt or who is offended. Do the 
laws of the United States declare that there shall be no discrimina- 
tion in railroad rates between shippers great or small ? Then dis- 
criminations and rebates must be stopped by the whole aggres- 
sive force of the National Government, whatever the cost, how- 
ever great and powerful may be the offenders pursued, however 
injurious may be their enmity. The novelty of this strenuous 
law enforcement has not consisted in applying any new theories 
of governmental control or in the exercise of any new powers, but 
rather in breaking up the sleepy old methods of procedure, in 
securing practically adequate administrative statutes to give life 
to the old Constitutional and statutory declarations of general 
rules which were by themselves ineffective, and in putting force 
and momentum into the attack on established and customary evils. 



Resentment of Lawbreakers. 

When continuous and widespread violations of law have been 
profitable and many persons have a special pecuniary interest 
against any interference with them, they present a degree of 
resistance to law enforcement which' can be overcome only by 
an awakened public interest, and by a degree of apparent excite- 
ment which sometimes seems like undue violence, for force must 
be proportioned to resistance. It is impossible to burst open doors 
softly. An incident to this kind of vigorous law enforcement is 
the resentment and revengeful feeling of the people whose profits 
are interfered with. Of this feeling, awakened by Republican 
law enforcement, the Democratic party now gladly takes the 
benefit, and one of the serious questions of this campaign is to 
be whether the people of the country are going to permit the 
Republican party to suffer for having enforced the law in the 
State and the nation, or whether they are going to back up law 
enforcement by their approval shown in their votes for the Re- 
publican candidates. 



Effectiveness of Government. 

In every department of the National Government since the 
decisive approval of Republican administration given in the great 
majorities four years ago there has been practical effectiveness of 
action which should be highly satisfactory to all the people of the 
country who really care about having the Government business 
well and creditably done. 

The financial panic of last autumn, which resulted, as so 
many panics have before, from reckless extravagance and wild 
speculation, was checked by the firm hand and clear understand- 
ing of national financial administration. Confidence was restored. 
The panic has passed away, revealing a substantial business 
soundness and widely dififused wealth throughout the country, 
unprecedented in our history and the result of a long period of 
wise and able Republican administration ; and the Republican 
Congress, against much Democratic opposition, has enacted a 
wise law to make such a panic as that impossible in the future. 

Our War Department has continued to be an agent for peace 
and for the spread of American ideals of ordered liberty. The 
Filipinos, already initiated by us in the practice of local self-gov- 
ernment in their Barrios and Provinces, have now been taught 
the first step towards national self-government by the successful 
inauguration of the Philippines Legislative Assembly. Cuba has 
been pacified. Her armies, on the verge of bloodshed, have been 
induced to lay down their arms, and, under the intervening gov- 
ernment and guidance of the United States, through perfectly 
peaceful and orderly elections, Cuba is about to embark in her 
second attempt at independent self-government. 



Progress at Panama. 

Under the medical officers of the army the Isthmus of 
Panama, where pestilence had ruled for centuries and work- 
men died like flies, has been made healthful and safe; yellow 
fever has been banished, malaria has been reduced, and the death 
rate among the thirty thousand employees engaged in the canal 
work has been reduced to the ordinary average level of our Ameri- 
can cities. Under the engineer officers of the army the work of 
excavation and construction is progressing with a rapidity never 
before known upon any work in the world, and the simple con- 
tinuance of the present conditions will Avithin the next seven years 
crown the work by the completion of the canal, to the imperish- 



able honor of America as a benefactor of civilization. What will 
happen if the American people change the administration with all 
the chances of incapacity, inexperience and doubtful experiment 
no one can forecast. 

The extraordinary voyage of our battleship fleet, circumnavi- 
gating South America, to the extreme northern boundary of our 
western coast, across the wide Pacific to far-off New Zealand 
and Australia, and so along its way around the world, has evoked 
much discussion as to both political and naval policy. In both of 
these the developments of the voyage have shown that the policy 
of the administration was sound and far-sighted. There is one 
other thing which the voyage has shown beyond peradventure: 
it is that there has been only sound and honest work under the 
Navy Department in construction, in equipment and in training. 
The unexampled test to which this fleet has been subjected abso- 
lutely excludes any possibility of graft or slackness or false pre- 
tence in naval administration. 



Postal Service Improved. 

The Post Office Department has increased its receipts from 
$82,665,462.73 in 1897 to $183,585,005.57 m 1907. It has in- 
creased the number of pieces handled from 5,781,002,143 in 1897 
tp 12,255,666.367 in 1907. It has increased the Rural Free De- 
livery routes from 83 in 1897 to 37,728 in 1907, and 39,270 in 1908, 
serving sixteen million people, while it has decreased the number of 
post offices from 76,945 in 1901 to 62,659 i" 1907. The great in- 
crease in circulation of newspapers and magazines along the Rural 
Free Delivery routes, the bringing of up-to-date information about 
markets and improvements and current events to the farmer, the 
relief to the isolation of farm life, all testify to the wisdom of this 
beneficent Republican policy, which had its origin under Presi- 
dent McKinley and its great development under President Roose- 
velt. The Post Office Department has effected a saving of nearly 
five millions a year by reform in the weighing of railway mails. 
It has almost completed the list of parcels-post conventions with 
the other nations of the world. It has given security of tenure to 
good postmasters, has reduced the hours of labor and has in- 
creased the promptness and efficiency of the service. 

The Department of Justice has borne the burden of vast and 
complicated litigation necessary to the legal assault upon wide- 
spread and deeply intrenched abuses defended by wealth and in- 
fluence and power in many fields. By investigations and suits 



and prosecutions, it has substantially put an end to the almost 
universal practice of railroad rebates. It has halted and made it 
plain that if allowed to continue in the same way it will inevitably 
end the oppressive and unfair practices through which great 
combinations of capital have been acquiring monopolies and 
crushing weaker competitors. 



Thieves Restore Plunder. 

It has compelled the land thieves and timber thieves who 
h.ad fastened themselves upon the great Government domains in 
the West to give up their plunder. By prosecutions under the 
penal clauses of the postal laws it has put an end to lotteries in 
the United States, It has conducted an effective campaign 
against the practice of peonage, a thin disguise under which 
slavery was again reappearing in certain regions of the South. 
Under the wise policy of recent Republican legislation it has 
asserted the value of American citizenship by scrutinizing for the 
first time in our history the proceedings in the multitude of 
courts which have power to grant naturalization, and by prose- 
cuting the fraudulent practices imder which, unchecked, the lib- 
erality of the United States towards the immigrant had so often 
been abused. By active proceedings it has given new life to the 
eight-hour labor and contract labor provisions of the Federal 
statutes. It has enforced the ordinary laws and conducted the 
ordinary legal business of the Government faithfully and effect- 
ively. 

In the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture a new era 
has been inaugurated of protection, preservation and enlarge- 
ment of the natural wealth of the United States. Tlie reclama- 
tion of the arid lands of the West by irrigation was provided for 
by the act of the Republican Congress of the 17th of June, 1902, 
a fitting supplement to that other great Republican measure, the 
homestead law. Under that act more than 25,000,000 acres of 
desert lands are being rapidly converted into fruitful farms, with- 
out entailing the ultimate cost of a dollar to the national treasury. 



Extensive Irrigation Work. 

Twenty-five irrigation projects are under construction. On 
the 1st of January last 1881 miles of canals had been dug; 281 
great dams and other large structures for the storage and utiliza- 
tion of water had been built; 42,447,000 cubic yards of earth and 

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rock had been excavated; 131^ miles of tunnels had been driven, 
and already, with practically all the projects still uncompleted, 
eight new towns have been established and over fourteen thou- 
sand of our people have made new homes on the reclaimed land. 
The forest policy of Republican administration under the 
Department of Agriculture has been far in advance of the general 
public appreciation of its importance. Over 166,000,000 acres of 
public forest land have been placed under the administration of 
the Forest Service, and by strict and well organized supervision 
are preserved from spoliation and from fire, as great reservoirs of 
water supply for the interests of navigation, irrigation, power and 
domestic use. The forests are not only preserved, but they are 
used for grazing where they can be grazed without injury, and 
for cutting the ripe timber that can be cut without injury. The 
cost of supervision, protection and utilization has risen as the 
area set aside has increased from $350,000 in 1904 to $1,790,678.79 
in 1907, but the receipts from the sale of timber and grazing have 
risen from $58,436.19 in 1904 to $1,571,059.44 in 1907, so that the 
service is already almost self-supporting. 

Protection of Coal Lands. 

Sixty-seven million acres of public lands underlaid by coal 
which under former practices would have been sold at a small min- 
imum price, and, too often, had been taken up by fraudulent entries 
as agricultural lands for the benefit of some corporation or syndi- 
cate, have been withdrawn from entry. Fifty million acres of the 
lands thus withdrawn have been examined and valued by the 
Geological Survey service and restored to public purchase as 
coal lands at a true and reasonable valuation. At fifteen hundred 
stations throughout the United States the flow of streams has 
been gauged and a knowledge of their flood and low stages and 
average discharge has been obtained through the Geological Sur- 
vey. Tliese investigations have shown where millions of wasted 
horse-power can be utilized, and at the same time destructive 
floods controlled and an equal flow of water preserved for the 
uses of navigation in the East and irrigation in the West. 

The grazing lands of the public domain had been greatly 
encroached upon by the great cattle owners, and during the past 
five years fences unlawfully enclosing public lands have been 
removed from 3,518,583 acres, and action has been taken to re- 
move such enclosures from an additional 3.763,186 acres. Dur- 
ing the past eight years over a million dollars have been collected 
by the Departments of the Interior and of Justice in penalties for 

II 



timber trespasses. For all sorts of offences aimed at the public 
domain during that period over three thousand indictments have 
been found; over 870 convictions have been had, and over 250 
prison sentences have been imposed. Within the same period 
7,874 fraudulent land entries have been cancelled, restoring to 
public entry over 2,259,840 acres. Government initiative and 
Government activity in the conservation of our national resources 
have awakened the whole country to a sense of the wastefulness 
which has depleted our wealth in the past and the necessity of 
economy in the future. 



Value of Land Increased. 

In the meantime, the Department of Agriculture is increas- 
ing the value of every acre of land by scientific researches and 
experiments and practical instruction, which are teaching our 
people to make their land more productive, and to combat the 
enemies of animal and plant life. Careful, well organized and 
systematic inspection and supervision under the meat-inspec- 
tion law and the pure-food law of 1906 have restored the credit 
of our meat products and are protecting our people from fraud- 
ulent and adulterated foods. 

The Department of Commerce and Labor has, for the first 
time, established immediate and practical co-operation between 
the Government and the organized commercial bodies of the 
country. It is sifting with greater efBciency than ever before, 
under the recent legislation of Congress, the crowds of im- 
migrants W'ho come to our ports, and excluding criminals, 
paupers, the diseased and contract laborers. It is bringing pub- 
licity into the workings of the great corporations. It is investi- 
gating the conditions surrounding woman and child labor in the 
United States. It is keeping the producers and merchants of 
the country constantly fully informed as to the markets and trade 
conditions of the entire world. 

All of these Departments are performing with integrity and 
efficiency the vast mass of ordinary duties of government de- 
volving upon them, those duties which are so inconspicuous and 
unnoticed but so important for the welfare of the country. 
Search where you may; in no private business, corporate or in- 
dividual, in this or any other country, can be found a higher 
standard of integrity, fidelity and competency than exists to-day 
in the Government of the United States in all its Departments. 

12 



Trade in World's Markets. 

Our country has not lived unto itself alone. It is at peace 
with all the world, but it is not the peace of isolation. We have 
grown so great that we are touching elbows with the people of 
every other country. Our vast trade seeks every market ; our 
millions of immigrants maintain ties of citizenship or relation- 
ship with every country; our travelers throng every foreign 
highway. We could not, if we would, escape from the respon- 
sibilities, the duties and the opportunities of active membership 
in the community of nations. On that great international field 
we must play our part whether we will or not. We must main- 
tain and enlarge our trade; we must protect our citizens, native 
and naturalized, in every right; we must establish and maintain 
a strength of potential defence which shall discourage predatory 
attacks that our wealth would otherwise invite; we must render 
justice to all countries and to their people, so that there shall 
be no just cause for assaults upon us; we must promote friendly 
intercourse and better knowledge between our people and all 
others, so that there shall be no quarrels born of misunderstand- 
ing. Beyond all this we must do our part according to the 
measure of our wealth and power, to promote the peace of the 
world, to encourage and to aid the weak, the unfortunate and 
the undeveloped peoples of mankind along the pathway of 
civilization, and to spread throughout the world the ordered 
liberty and justice which have been our heritage. 



Peace and Arbitration. 

In these things we have not failed. In the second great 
Peace Conference at The Hague, the American representatives 
bore their part of useful service with distinction, and contributed 
in full measure to the results of the Conference, which con- 
stitute one of the greatest advances ever made towards the 
reasonable and peaceable regulation of international conduct. 
Twelve treaties agreed upon at that Conference, all designed to 
reduce the probability or mitigate the horrors of war, have been 
approved by the Senate and ratified by the President. 

Following the Conference, the United States has put itself 
definitely upon the basis of the peaceful settlement of inter- 
national disputes by concluding general treaties of arbitration 
with England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Den- 
mark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, Mexico and Japan. 

13 



All of these have been confirmed hy the Senate, and many others 
are in course of negotiation. 

Threatened tariff wars between the United States and Ger- 
many, and the United States and France have been averted by 
commercial agreements under the power conferred upon tlic 
President in the third section of the Dinsjlev tariff act. 



Canada and China. 

The long unsettled questions with Canada have been car- 
ried far along the way towards a conclusion. Under one treaty 
already made, a commission is disposing of the last remaining 
questions of doubt and dispute along our three thousand miles of 
boundary. Under another treaty a commission is framing joint 
international regulations for the preservation of the food supply 
in the great lakes and other boundary waters. Under a third 
treaty we have agreed upon the submission to The Hague Tribu- 
nal of the century old controversies relating to the Newfound- 
land fisheries, while, pending this arbitration, from year to year 
our fishermen are protected in their rights by a friendly modus 
Vivendi. 

In China the boycott against American goods, caused by 
Chinese exclusion, has been abandoned, and China is herself 
giving valuable aid towards preventing the emigration of her 
coolies to America. Under authority of Congress we are about 
remitting all the punitive part of the indemnity stipulated for 
after the Boxer rebellion, and the Chinese Government is, of 
its own motion, formulating a plan to apply the remitted part of 
the indemnity to the sending of Chinese students annually to be 
educated in the United State§, 



Japanese Question Settled. 

All the wild outcries of the sensational press at home and 
abroad have failed to destroy the good understanding between 
the Governments of Japan and of the United States. The dif^fi- 
culties which arose in San Francisco have been disposed of. The 
two Governments are actively co-operating with perfect mutual 
understanding for the prevention of Japanese labor immigration 
into the United States. Our treaty of arbitration ratified during 
the past summer was followed by a treaty for the mutual pro- 
tection of trade marks, copyrights and patents in China. On the 

U 



special invitation of Japan we are making preparations to par- 
ticipate on a scale which we have never before attempted in her 
great international exposition which is to mark the fiftieth anni- 
versary of the accession of her Emperor; and, upon the special 
invitation of Japan, our fieet is about to visit the harbor of 
Tokyo, where it w\\\ be received with a hospitality not marred by a 
single discordant note. 

Our course in the Pan-American Conference at Rio de 
Janeiro in 1906, and the friendly intercourse which has followed 
have dispelled the suspicion and distrust with which we were 
once regarded by the people of Latin America, and, with the 
single exception of the irresponsible and abnormal Dictator of 
Venezuela, genuine friendship and good will bridge the gulf of 
race and language between ourselves and every people of the 
Western Hemisphere. 



Policy in Caribbean Sea. 

"Regarding the countries about the Caribbean sea, whose 
nearness to the Panama canal route makes their fortunes of 
special interest to us, we have developed and followed a definite 
course of policy which may be described by saying "We do not 
wish to take possession of any of those countries ourselves ; we 
are not willing to have any other foreign nation take posession of 
them ; and to prevent the necessity of the one or the possibility of 
the other, we do wish to help then go\ ern themselves in peace and 
order and prosperity." 

That is the key to our treatment of Cuba. Under that policy 
we have made a treaty with Santo Domingo under which the 
presence of a single American civil officer, as Receiver of Cus- 
toms, with the moral power of the United States behind him to 
demonstrate the hopelessness of any attempt at revolution, has 
substituted uninterrupted peace for continuous turmoil and blood- 
shed, has more than doubled the Government revenues, has 
brought about an adjustment of the debt and a restoration of sol- 
vency, and has established a revival of industry and of commerce. 
Under the same policy we have been collaborating with Mexico, 
once an enemy and now a close and valued friend, to mitigate the 
conditions of revolution and war among the Central American 
States; and a Peace Conference during the past winter, under the 
guidance of the two greater countries, has resulted in a series 
of treaties and the establishment of an International Central 
American Court for the settlement of differences — substantial 

15 



advances along the slow and difficult jDathway to established 
order. 

Consular Service Reorganized. 

In the meantime, the reorganization of our consular service 
and the practice of promotion for merit in the diplomatic service 
has increased the efficiency and usefulness of all our representa- 
tives abroad. We contributed substantially towards maintaining 
the peace of Europe in the Conference at Algeciras, and the 
greatest war of modern times was ended when Japan and Russia 
were brought together under the congenial influence of Ameri- 
can conciliation in the treaty of Portsmouth. 

The prosperity and well-being of our people as a whole cor- 
responds to the efficiency of the Government, which justly repre- 
sents them. Never anywhere m the long history of mankind's 
struggles for better conditions have there been among so many 
millions of people so great a diffusion of wealth, such universal 
comfort of living, such ready rewards for industry and enterprise, 
such milimited opportunities for education and individual ad- 
vancement and such independence and dignity of manhood as in 
our country now. 

Statistics of Prosperity. 

We are all familiar with the amazing statistics that mark our 
prosperity. Our foreign trade last year amounted to $3,315,272,- 
503. The balance of trade in our favor last year was $446,429,653, 
and in the last four years it has amounted to $1,825,520,202. The 
value of our farm products last year was $3,958,000,000. Accord- 
ing to the last census there were 5,739,657 separate farms, and 
the live stock upon those farms is valued at $4,331,230,000. The 
value of our manufactured products in 1905 amounted to $16,- 
866.703,985. Our bank deposits of all kinds last year amounted 
to $13,077,330,466. There were last year in the United States 
8,588,811 savings bank depositors, with an aggregate deposit of 
$3,495,410,087. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1906, 
there were instructed in the schools of the United States 18,434,- 
847 scholars, and of these 210,333 were students in universities, 
colleges and professional and technical schools. Churches and 
hospitals and libraries abound. Associations for mutual aid and 
for public benefit number their members and their revenues by 
millions. Our people are keenly alive to the public interest and 
competent for the discussion of public questions. Expression of 
opinion is free as the air we breathe. Respect for law is general; 

16 



disregard of it is the rare exception. At no time and in no 
country has mere wealth secured for its possessor less public con- 
sideration or have the high qualities of personal manhood availed 
so much for honor and opportunity. 



Practical Capacity to Govern. 

Government did not make these conditions, but they would 
have been impossible without wise and good government, and 
wise and good government is necessary to their continuance. 
Let us all put our shoulders to the wheel of reform. Let us press 
along in the path of progress, constantly improving conditions 
and leaving no class or condition of men who do not share in 
the im.provement; but let us not forget that true reform proceeds, 
not by overturning or destroying in order to substitute the con- 
jectural future of sanguine theory, but always by building steadily 
and surely on the safe foundations of all that is good in the 
present. Wisdom, skill, experience in the operations of Govern- 
ment, practical capacity combined with honest purpose are neces- 
sary to make true reform effective. Without these, declarations 
and pubHc speeches, however eloquent, and proposals, however 
-attractive, are mere words and will never be realized. The sub- 
stantial question for the voters tO' answer in November is, how 
shall we secure a continuance of the good government under 
which we have attained to all our blessings; how select public 
agents who' will maintain the peace and order and prosperity we 
now have; and at the same time press forward and make prac- 
tically effective the reforms which this Republican Administration 
has inaugurated, and upon the value and beneficence of which 
all parties are agreed. 



Taft the True Successor. 

Plainly the true successor to this great duty is Secretary 
Taft. His wide experience and long years of successful service 
under heavy responsibility as jurist, legislator, administrator, his 
intimate acquaintance with the public affairs of our country, 
internal and external, prove his wisdom, his skill and his capacity. 
The confidence and sympathy and intimate association with which 
he has stood by and aided President Roosevelt in even>^ stage of 
the policies which, by the common consent of both parties, now 
lie before us to be continued and developed in practical effective- 
ness, indicate him as the best possible man to continue those 

17 



policies. The character that we know so well, with its courage, 
firmness, and energy, its unselfishness, modesty, frankness and 
honor assures us of his honest purpose, and his eminent fitness 
for the greatest of offices. 

The Democratic party announces as the issue of this cam- 
paign upon which they ask the voters of the country to take the 
powers of administration and legislation away from the party 
that has thus proved its competency, and to embark upon the 
experiment of Democratic control — as "the overshadowing issue'' 
the question "Shall tlie people rule?" 



The People Do Rule. 

Do not the people rule? This is a representative govern- 
ment. It surely is not proposed to do away with representation 
and have eighty-five millions of people make and execute their 
laws directly, without the intervention of legislative and executive 
agents. Are not the laws being made and executed by the agents 
v/liom the people have selected for that purpose? I find that by 
the lawful returns of the last Presidential election Theodore 
Roosevelt received 2,541,296 more votes for the Presidency than 
Alton B. Parker. Has he not a good title to the ofifice? Are not 
the people ruling through him, their chosen Executive, so far as 
his, part of the Government is concerned? Has not every Con- 
gressional District been represented in Congress by the man 
whom a majority of its voters selected? Is not every State re- 
presented in the Senate by Senators chosen by its own Legisla- 
ture, selected by the people of the State for the performance of 
that very duty? 

But Mr. Bryan gives specifications. He says there are three 
reasons why the people do not rule. 



Bryan's Charges Met. 

First, because there is corrupt use of money at elections. 
Does he mean to say that the two millions and a half of votes 
which constitute Mr. Roosevelt's majority were bought; that to 
such a frightful extent the American electorate is venal? Does 
he produce any evidence of such a charge? Not the slightest. 
Does he produce any facts tending to sustain even a suspicion of 
the justice of such a charge? None whatever. For one, I deny 
its truth, and I assert that American elections are fair and honest 

18 



elections, and that the Government in Washington has been 
wielding- the powers vested in it under the Constitution by the 
clear and unquestionable will of the people of the United States. 
Campaign funds were raised and used in the last election by both 
parties, as they ought to have been raised and used. Mr. Bryan's 
managers are appealing for contributions of campaign funds to- 
day. The universal and intelligent discussion of great questions 
of public policy by the American people during a Presidential 
campaign is the most useful and the most hope-inspiring school 
of government in the world. It is that which makes the people 
ever more competent to govern justly and wisely. No money 
expended to promote that great exercise of governing intelligence 
is ill spent; and to furnish eighty-five million people with material 
for discussion, to reach them with infortnation and arguments and 
refutation of argument, and appeals, through public speech and 
through the mails and private canvass, requires organization, the 
labor of thousands of men and the expenditure of great sums. 
The repetition of small expenses among a great multitude of 
people spread over a vast territory mounts up with a rapidity 
clifificult to realize. The postage on a single letter mailed to each 
of the fourteen million voters of the country amounts to $280,000. 
To such proper and useful purposes and to such purposes only 
was the Republican campaign fund of the last election devoted. 



People Choose Senators. 

The second reason why Mr. Bryan says the people do not 
rule is that we have not direct election of Senators, and he holds 
the Republican party responsible for not having procured an 
amendment to the Constitution of the United States tO' provide 
for that. There is no more necessity for an amendment to the 
Constitution providing for the direct election of Senators than 
there is for an amendment to the Constitution providing for the 
direct election of President. If the people of any State wish 
any particular man to be chosen as Senator they have only to 
instruct their Legislature, as the people of a considerable num- 
ber of States make it their practice to do now, and no Legis- 
lature will ever for a moment think of disobeying the instruc- 
tions any more than Presidential electors violate their obliga- 
tions. The proposed amendment is simply to enable the people 
of each State to escape from the performance of the duty of 
electing a Legislature that can be trusted. Are we prepared 
to abandon the performance of that dutv? Are we to assume 
that our State Legislatures must necessarily and for all time be 

19 



unfit to represent the people of the State? If so, what becomes 
of the government of the State? Is that with all its multitude 
of important duties to be left unfit? 



Question for the States. 

If any State Legislature cannot now be trusted, the true 
reform would seem to be in the direction of selecting the Legis- 
lature. Speaking for myself alone, I believe that the selection 
of Legislative candidates by direct primaries would be a ma- 
terial improvement, and would greatly increase the sense of im- 
mediate responsibility to their constituents on the part of the 
members of the State Legislature. In such primaries the voters 
could instruct their candidates if they saw fit, and as they saw 
fit, regarding the selection of Senators. But that is a question 
the people of each State can settle for themselves without any 
amendment of the Constitution, and however they settle it, they 
rule in the way they prefer to rule. If any Legislature under 
the Constitution does not choose a Senator who properly 
represents the people of the State, it is because the people of the 
State have failed in their duty in the selection of their Legis- 
lature. Let them perform their duty under the Constitution as 
it is, rather than clamor for an amendment to the Constitution 
to enable them to escape that duty. In the long run, to secure 
good government we must ultimately come down to the faith- 
ful performance of duty by the people of the country at the 
polls, and no expedient or change of form will take the place of 
that performance. 



Management of the House. 

The third reason why the people do not rule, says Mr. 
Bryan, is to be found in the rviles of the House of Represent- 
atives. The Denver Convention declared in its platform that it 
observed with amazement the popular branch of our Federal 
Government helpless to obtain either the consideration or enact- 
ment of measures desired by a majority of its members." Who 
makes the rules of the House of Representatives? Why, a 
majority of its members, and a majority can change them as it 
will. Manifestly, there must be rules to control the conduct of 
the business of the House, or no business could be done. Over 
thirty thousand bills were introduced in the last session of Con- 
gress, and there are 386 members. If one-tenth of the mem- 

20 



bers had attempted to speak five minutes each on one-tenth of 
the bills that were introduced, working eight hours a day for 
the average Legislative session and permitting the transaction 
of no other business, they would have been speaking still, and 
the term of office of the entire Congress would expire before 
one-fourth of the one-tenth could be heard. Plainly, there must 
be rules to limit oratory to provide for the selection of the 
measures which shall come up for discussion, and to provide for 
the transaction Qi the real business of kgislatign. 

Legislative Rules Imperative. 

All legislative bodies have to adopt such rules, and the larger 
the body the more necessary are the rules and the more stringent 
they have to be. It is an invariable incident to the transaction 
of all legislative business that from time to time members wdio 
are not allowed to talk as long and as often as they please to 
the exclusion of others and who cannot have the measures they 
are particularly interested in acted upon in preference to other 
measures, rise up and cry out against the rules, as the Demo- 
crats are crying out against them now. The real trouble is that 
the Democrats in the House of Representatives are a minority 
and cannot have their own way because they are a minority. 
The real Democratic grievance is, not that the majority does 
not rule, but that it does rule. The rules at present in force in 
the House of Representatives, are those adopted under Speaker 
Reed when the Democratic members of the House had stopped 
all public business by refusing to answer to their names and in- 
sisting that unless thev answered, although personally present, 
they could not be counted as making up a quorum. The amaze- 
ment with which the Democratic party observes that those rules 
are still in force must be greatly increased by the knowledge of 
the fact that the same rules were continued and enforced by the 
Democratic House under the Democratic Speaker, Mr. Crisp, 
when they succeeded to the Republican House over which Mr. 
Reed presided. 

"Tailors of Tooley Street." 

Consideration of the paramount issue now proposed by the 
Democracy, "Shall the people rule?" forces the conclusion that 
the draftsmen of the Democratic platform are to be acquitted 
of the ofifence of insulting the intelligence of the American people 
by a piece of cheap buncombe, only because they have fallen 
into the confusion which beset the three tailors of Tooley Street, 

21 



who began their proclamation, "We, the People of England," 
and that they think the people do not rule because they do not 
themselves rule. 

The Democratic platform assails the Republican National 
Administration for the increase in the number of office holder? 
and the great expenditures of the Government, which the plat- 
form characterizes as extravagant. It demands that the Na- 
tional Government should do a great variety of things which can 
be done only through the employment of numerous agents and the 
expenditure of great sums of money, but it declares the employ- 
ment of the agents and the expenditure of the money to be un- 
justifiable and extravagant. It gives specifically the number of 
office holders added and the number of million of dollars ex- 
pended, but is silent as to the work that has been accomplished. 

Nation's New Employees. 

In the numbers so given by the Democratic platform are 
included the carriers who deliver the mails upon the thirty-nine 
thousand rural free delivery routes. Would the Democratic party 
discharge them from office and stop the rural free delivery? If 
not, is it honest for their platform to invite the condemnation of 
the people for the addition of these thirty-nine thousand letter car- 
riers without disclosing what they are for? The increase of 
expense which they declare to be extravagant includes the cost of 
the Panama Canal. Would they stop work on the canal? If not, 
is it honest to include that cost in the figures of added expense 
which they call extravagance, and not disclose the purpose for 
which the expense was added? The employment of agents and 
the expenditure of money made necessary in the prosecution of 
trusts, the regulation of railroads, the prevention of rebates, the 
restoration of public lands, the conservation of natural resources, 
the regulation of immigration and of naturalization, the improve- 
ment of agriculture, the upbuilding of the navy, the extension of 
our foreign trade, all the vast activities of the National Govern- 
ment along thc^very lines that the Democratic party is insisting 
upon, are included in these figures which the Democratic platform 
charges as extravagance, without one word to indicate what is 
the fact, that full and necessary service was rendered by every 
additional officer and full value received for every dollar. 

Surplus in Treasury. 

The expenditures of the present Republican Administration 
fiave been well within the means of the country, and there re- 

22 



mains to it in the Treasury a surplus of revenues collected dur- 
ing this Administration over and above the expenditures. Every 
additional office holder employed and every dollar of increase of 
expenditure have been authorized by the direct representatives 
of the people of the United States in Congress as being wise 
expenditure in the public interest. Every dollar has been hon- 
estly expended in accordance with that authority, and in charging 
extravagance by a mere statement of the amount expended and 
the number of officers employed, without any reference to what 
was accomplished, the Democratic party must stand convicted 
of an attempt to mislead the people of the United States by the 
mere force of large figures. 

The Democratic platform charges also that the action of the 
present Chief Executive in using the patronage of his high office 
to secure the nomination of Mr. Taft to the Presidency is "a vio- 
lation of the spirit of our institutions." Is there a man of full 
age in the United States who does not know that the power 
which Mr. Roosevelt brought to the support of ]\Ir. Taft's can- 
didacy was not patronage, but his extraordinary and phenomenal 
popularity and leadership among the masses of the people of the 
country, a popularity of which Mr. Bryan is now attempting to 
secure the benefit by declaring himself Mr. Roosevelt's natural 
successor ? 

Roosevelt's Renunciation. 

Is there one who does not know that if Mr. Roosevelt had 
desired to perpetuate his power, he could have been nominated 
by raising his finger, and that his advocacy of Mr. Taft's nom- 
ination was because it was necessary for him to secure the nom- 
ination of some one in order to prevent his own nomination? Is 
there one who does not believe in his heart of hearts that the 
selection of Mr. Taft by Mr, Roosevelt as his candidate for the 
Presidency at the very moment when he himself was thrusting 
aside the Presidency, was with the honest purpose to secure the 
best possible administrator of the great policies that were dear 
to his heart? Is it to a dishonest purpose that Mr. Bryan claims 
to be the heir, and is it possible to ascribe a desire to perpetuate 
personal power to the man who held the highest power in his 
grasp and rejected it? 

It is but a short time since these same voices of detraction 
were charging the President with the purpose of usurping su- 
preme and perpetual authority for himself. Yet he has proved 
himself capable of a renunciation of power exceptional in history, 
and has contributed to our system of government a precedent 

23 



which forever sets a Umit upon the continuance of the Presiden- 
tial office. It is but a short time since these same voices were heard 
declaring that the President's character was so rashly belligerent 
that his Presidency would involve the country in certain war. 
Yet he has proved to be the greatest peacemaker of the generation. 



The Human Factor. 

Mr. Bryan charges that the Republican party is responsible 
for the abuses of corporate wealth. As well might he charge that 
the man who plants cotton is responsible for the boll weevil, or 
that the man who plants fruit trees is responsible for the San 
Jose scale. Until the millennium has brought the eradication of 
human selfishness and greed, social abuses will come according 
to the shifting conditions of the times. Adversity and prosperity, 
wealth and poverty have each their own kinds of abuse. Con- 
stant vigilance and constant activity to meet and put an end to 
abuses as they arise is the task of government and of good citi- 
zenship; but the work is never finished. The Republican party 
has produced the conditions which have made our great pros- 
perity possible, and it is dealing with the evils which have been 
incident to that prosperity with vigor and effectiveness. Upon 
the course to be pursued regarding these evils, upon the attitude 
and action of the Government towards trusts, railroads and all 
the great corporations, there is no substantial issue between the 
two parties. 

There are two substantial proposals made by the Democratic 
party as to the policy which they will follow if they are brought 
into power. 

Tariff for Revenue Only. 

One is that they wjUjwipe oulthe_:BIQte£tive_ta rifiF and su b- 
stitute a tariff for revenue only. I shall not discuss that propo- 
Siticjn, but it ought not to be forgotten. The eleven years which 
have passed since the Dingley tariff was enacted have brought 
about many changes in the conditions to which the tariff law is 
applied. Many of these changes have resulted from the very 
prosperity which the protection afforded by the tariff has pro- 
duced. In the nature of things, such changes must occur and 
from time to time every tariff must be revised and adapted to the 
new conditions. As the period of revision, however, is always 
one of uncertainty and a consequent injury to business, revisions 
ought not to be made too often or upon slight grounds. The 

24 



Republican party has not considered that sufficient grounds for 
thus disturbing business have existed heretofore. It now con- 
siders that sufficient grounds do now exist and it has pledged 
itself immediately after the 4th of March next to devote an extra- 
ordinary session of Congress to making such a revision in ac- 
cordance with the true principles of protection. One c f the ques- 
tions that must be determined by the coming election is whether 
we shall have such a revision, or whether we shall have the prin- 
ciple of protection abandoned and a new tariff enacted in accor- 
dance with the principles of free trade, and containing only such 
duties as are necessary to raise revenue for the support of the 
Government without any protective purpose. 



When Business Ceased. 

The last time the Democratic party was in power It attempted 
such a change of policy and the result was the Wilson-Gorman 
tariff of 1893. The very threat of such a proceeding at that time 
stopped business, closed the mills, threw millions of men out of 
employment, and was accompanied by universal business depres- 
sion and disaster. Are we ready to repeat that experience now, 
as we surely shall if we put the Democratic party in power? 

The other proposition of the Democratic platform is to re- 
quire all national banks to guarantee the payment of deposits by 
all other national banks. This is another patent financial nostrum, 
advertised to catch the fancy of the multi<^ude ; and it should be 
suppressed under the pure food law untix it is correctly labelled 
"a. measure to compel legitimate business to bear the risks of 
speculation." It might well be called a measure to destroy the 
national banking system, for who will wish to invest his money 
in a business where it is not merely subject to the risks assumed 
by the men whom he and his associates select to manage it, but 
is subject also to be called upon for the payment of "an unlimited 
amount of debts of an indefinite number of persons over whom 
and whose obligations he and his associates have no control what- 
ever? 

Bank Deposits 

A bank deposit is a very simple business transaction. The 
depositor in effect loans his money to the bank, which borrows 
it upon a promise to repay it on the lender's order, with or 
without a stipulated interest. Banks seldom fail to pay the debts 
thus contracted. Although the deposits are ordinarily many 

25 



times the capital, losses are exceedingly small. The principal 
reason why this is so is that bankers are ordinarily men who 
have established a good reputation in the community for honesty 
and business sense. People ordinarily will not risk their money 
by lending it to men who have not these claims to confidence. 
Under the law any one who can furnish $25,000 can start a bank, 
but in practice, as a rule, no one can start a bank who cannot 
also furnish a character which leads the community to trust him 
and deposit their money with him. If, however, the sound and 
honest banks of the country guarantee the debts of every bank, 
a well-earned reputation for honesty and business judgment will 
no longer be necessary as a part of the banker's capital. It will 
no longer be necessary for the community to consider whether a 
banker is honest or not. Any scalawag can start a bank and 
obtain deposits on the credit of all the banks of the country. Any 
one who wishes to use funds in speculative enterprises can start 
a bank, invite deposits and thus borrow money on the credit of 
the entire banking capital of the United States. With such op- 
portunities, who can doubt that the standard of character of the 
bankers of the country would deteriorate and the use of banking 
funds for speculative enterprises would increase and that the 
losses which the honest bankers would be required to make good 
would increase correspondingly. 



Depositors Would Suffer. 

This burden will fail not merely upon the stockholders of the 
banks, but upon the depositors also. Much banking capital 
v/ould inevitably be driven out of the business and such as re- 
mained would have to make good its losses by reducing the rate 
of interest to its depositors and increasing the rate of interest 
upon loans. The profits of the banking business, like those of 
Ihe merchant, the manufacturer and the farmer, depend upon 
good management. The attempt to make all the profits of good 
management bear all the losses of bad management is a step in 
the_ socialistic process which would level all d^istinctions between 
thrift, enterprise and sound judgment on the one hand, and 
recklessness, incapacity and failure on the other. 

Except for campaign purposes there is no occasion for any 
such scheme. The business men of the country need no guar- 
antee of bank deposits. They know with w^hom they are dealing 
when they select a bank for' deposits, and their intelligence and 
knowledge of afifairs are amply sufificient for their own protection 



in making the selection. The wage earners of the country, the 
multitude of people of small savings, not familiar with business, 
so far as they live in places where there are savings banks, have 
practically perfect safety for their deposits, and over eight and a 
half million of them are enjoying that safety now with a good 
rate of interest. For them, if they prefer it, and for all who live 
in places which arc not accessible to savings banks, the Repub- 
lican party proposes that the Government shall furnish absolute 
security through a postal savings bank, so that the wage earner 
can deposit his savings at the nearest post office and have the 
guarantee of the Government that it shall be returned; but that 
guarantee will be accompanied by the possession and control of 
the money itself, so that neither the depositor nor the Government 
can lose. This simple supplement to the banking and savings 
bank system meets every requirement, and, unlike the Democratic 
proposal, it has been proved safe and practicable by the expe- 
rience of many countries, and it violates no principle of sound 
finance or of common sense. 



Bryan Unqualified. 

What evidence of Democratic fitness to be entrusted with 
power is to be found in the record of its candidate for the Presi- 
dency? It is with profound satisfaction that we recognize the 
purity and uprightness of Mr. Bryan's character, and we cannot 
withhold our admiration from the skill and attractiveness of his 
oratory; but when a candidate for high office can furnish no evi- 
dence of fitness derived from the actual performance of official 
duty, and relies entirely upon what he proposes to do in the 
future, we must test, so far as we can, the soundness of his judg- 
iment by the substance of his proposals, hot by his manner of 
presenting them. 

It was skillful of Mr. Bryan to say that he is bound by the 
omissions of the Democratic platform as well as by what it con- 
tains; but who dictated the omissions as well as the platform? 
Can an omission of to-day wipe out public utterances of the past 
and remove them from memory as a basis for judgment upon the 
public man? The same eloquent voice which now with so much 
confidence is telling us how the Government ought to be con- 
ducted was heard in Mr. Bryan's candidacy of 1896 urging upon 
the American people as a panacea for all evils and an absolute 
necessity for our prosperity the free and unlimited coinage of 
silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. Was he right then? Was 

27 



his judgment sound then? Would it have been wise for the 
people of the country to elect him President then in order to 
carry out the policy to which he was then devoted? 



Bryan's Former Issues. 

With the same confidence during his second candidacy he 
was heard to declare that the paramount issue before the Amer- 
ican people was that of Imperialism. Where is that issue now? 
However tired some Americans may be of the burden of the 
Philippines what must be our estimate of the political wisdom 
and sense of proportion for which in the year 1900 the so-called 
question of Imperialism filled the horizon and obscured the sky 
as the one paramount issue before the American people. 

On the 30th of August, 1906, Mr. Bryan announced upon 
his return from Europe, as the result of deliberate reflection, that 
Government ownership of railroads was the cure-all demanded 
by the public interest. "I have reached the conclusion," he 
declared, "that there will be no permanent relief on the railroad 
question from the discrimination between individuals and be- 
tween places, and from extortionate rates until the railroads 
are the propertv of the Government and are operated by the 
Government in the interest of the people." That declaration he 
has repeated many times in substance, 



Regulation of Railroads. 

The Republican party believes in the regulation of railroads. 
It believes that their managers ought to be made and can be 
made to obey the law. It believes that by an enforcement of the 
law, not spasmodic and sensational, but steady, firm and per- 
sistent, excessive and discriminating rates can be stopped; and 
it is now and has been for a considerable period engaged in 
such enforcement with marked efficiency and success. It pro- 
poses for the Presidency a candidate who declares his purpose 
to continue and complete that enforcement of the law and whose 
competency to do so with success has been proved. Mr. Bryan 
does not believe in the regulation of railroads. He does not 
believe it practicable. He regards it as bound to fail, although 
he is willing to criticise the Republican party for not accom- 
plishing that vast and complicated task all at once. 

It is natural to observe that if the people of the country 

28 



desire railroads to be regulated, and the laws regarding them to 
be enforced, it would be wise to entrust that regulation to Mr. 
Taft, who believes in regulation and has faith in the wisdom 
and effectiveness of the law, rather than in the hands of one 
who believes that all effort to regulate must prove futile. 



Bryan not Jeffersonian. 

The chief importance of this subject, however, rests in the 
light it throws upon the candidate's qualification for the Presiden- 
tial office. It is an essential characteristic of our system of 
government that it aims to afford individual opportunity for 
enterprise rather than to exercise paternal control. Americans 
have all felt from the earliest times that undue extension of 
governmental power threatened liberty and tended to dull the 
initiative which has made us great as a nation. It has been 
only upon the nost long continued consideration and with many 
doubts that we have yielded step by step to the enlargement of 
governmental regulation made necessary by the increasing com- 
plications of modern life and business. The apostle of the doc- 
trine that the functions of government should be confined within 
the narrowest possible limits was Thomas Jefferson, who e dis- 
ciple Mr. Bryan to-day professes to be. Under his inspiration 
the true Democratic party continually resisted the extension of 
governmental functions. It opposed the use of Government 
moneys for internal improvements. It opposed the building of 
the Pacific railroads. It opposed the National Bank act. It 
denied the right of the National Government to impose a pro- 
tective tariff. It has steadfastly maintained the broadest con- 
struction of State rights, and the narrowest construction of 
national rights. 

Bryan Paternalistic. 

Yet Mr. Bryan, while inscribing the name of Thomas Jeffer- 
son upon his standard, seriously proposes that the Federal Govern- 
ment shall not merely regulate the operations of railroads which 
are engaged in interstate commerce, but shall acquire and own 
and operate itself all the great railroads of the country. Con- 
sider for a moment the situation which would exist in the State 
of New York with the Federal Government owning and Federal 
officers in Washington controlling with all the rights of owner- 
ship the New York & New Haven, the New York Central, the 
West Shore, the Ontario & Western, the Delaware & Hudson, 

29 



the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, the Erie, the Lehigh Val- 
ley, the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania railroads. Con- 
sider the situation in Illinois with the Government controlling 
all the railroads that concentrate in Chicago, in Missouri the 
railroads that center in St. Louis. 

Add to that Mr. Bryan's proposal that no great interstate 
business shall be transacted — and all great business is interstate 
business — without the permission of the Federal Government evi- 
denced by a license ; and you cannot fail to realize that he is pre- 
pared to see the State dwarfed into insignificance and the farmer, 
the miner, the manufacturer, the merchant, all individual enter- 
prise, not merely subject to Government restraint against wrong 
doing, but dependent upon the Government, and upon a cen- 
tralized Government at Washington for their very existence. That 
is not reform ; it is revolution. It is reversion to the ideas of 
paternal government from which America had happily escaped 
with her system of free individual opportunity and enterprise, 
and to the ideas out of which South America has been bravely 
struggling for a generation. And this is to be done in the name 
of Thomas Jefferson ! 



Are the Democrats Competent? 

Now Mr. Bryan proposes that under supervision of the Na- 
tional Government everybody shall provide for the payment of 
everybody else's debts by his bank deposit guaranty scheme. 

Is it prudent to place in his hands the great power of the 
Presidency; and above all is it wise to give to him, rather than 
to Mr. Taft, the experienced judge, the filling of the -four vacan- 
cies in the Supreme Court of the United States which may be 
expected during the next Administration? 

What is furnished by the record of the Democratic party at 
large to show that it is competent to maintain the prosperity we 
have, and execute the promises of reform it tenders? No proof 
whatever of that is offered. All the evidence we have is the other 
w^y. _ The majority of us have not yet forgotten the second 
Administration of Grover Cleveland, which ended only on the 4th 
of March, 1897. The Democracy then had its opportunity to 
show the world what it could do' with government, for it pos- 
sessed the Executive office, a majority of the Senate and a ma- 
jority of the House. Its opportunity to exercise that control for 
the public benefit was wasted. Discord and confusion reigned 
throughout the entire four years. Incapacity to reach practical 

30 



conclusions or to take any effective action was demonstrated. 
No promises were kept. No reforms were accomplished. 

How Democrats Hated th6ir Leader. 

It became apparent that the sole cohesive force that bound 
the Democratic party together was the desire for ofifice, and 
once in office, instead of progress, we had all factions ' pull- 
ing different ways, totally incapable of agreeing upon a common 
course of conduct. There was but one sentiment in which a 
majority of the Democratic majority could be united; that was 
in hatred of Mr. Cleveland, and they hated him for his virtues. 
His sturdy integrity and high courage, his sincere convictions 
and patriotic purpose, his experience in government and strong 
practical sense afforded a leadership under which a party capable 
of government could have done great things for the country. 
The Democratic party repudiated his leadership, and the very 
men who now control that party followed him to his grave with 
depreciation and detraction. Under that discordant Democracy 
the country drifted through years of commercial depression and 
disaster, poverty and distress, without effective government until 
the first election of McKinley and a Republican Congress placed 
the reins of power in the hands of a party competent to govern. 

Are the people of the United States ready to repeat that 
experience of Democratic government? 



31 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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